Kalbarri National Park

Sunrise Hikes

Besides the beaches on the ocean and at the mouth of the river, the big attraction in Kalbarri is inland in the national park, which covers a large area surrounding the Murchison River gorge. The river has carved into the ancient sandstone exposing colorful layers embedded with fossils.

It has been very hot here and at least one of the main trails is closed after 7:00 am so visitors don't get heat stroke. Our forays to the various trail sites have started very early in the mornings. This is ideal for John, who has focused his photography on the special light of sunrise. But we have to start driving in the dark, usually before 5 am, and this is risky because of abundant nocturnal wildlife on the road, especially large kangaroos. So far, we haven't hit anything, tho we've narrowly missed a couple of echidnas.

A minor irritation in hiking is the little flies. They don't bite, but there are zillions of them and they buzz your ears and land on your eyelashes and go up your nose. Strong winds don't keep them away. So we wear these nets over our hats and it helps a lot.

Here is a sampling of the places we've seen so far:

Hawks Head Trail

About 30K east of Kalbarri, it's a short walk to the edge of the cliff above the river. 

John's first sunrise photo in the park

Ross Graham Trail

Near Hawks Head, a more rugged trail takes you down to the river level. Cool old rocks, lots of birds, especially "28s," a green ring-neck parrot whose call sounds like the French word "vingt-huit."

Sky Walk

This is a tourist favourite--a cantilevered walkway out over the deep river gorge. Many interpretive signs and bronze sculptures of various creatures.

Z Bend Trail

Not too far down from the carpark is a lookout point. The trail continues on a ways, which we haven't taken yet--it was too hot even tho overcast. Awesome rocks with fossilized animal tracks.

We plan to go to Nature's Window on a day when it's cooler. Stay tuned.